Company Holds Meeting, Stock Does Not Drop

It would be slightly unorthodox (and maybe a violation of SEC rules), but you could forgive Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. if it never wanted to meet with shareholders, hold conference calls, send out press releases, or communicate with the outside world in any way ever again. The last number of times it's done so, its stock has dropped precipitously and broken every bone on the way down. Like a guy whose d*ck fell off every time he slept with someone, you could maybe understand that there was a certain amount of PTSD and fear happening. But facing our fears is part of life and you can't go through life avoiding sex just because you had to undergo several painful reattachment surgeries, or because your stock, in the past, has been allergic to the sound of your executives' voice.

And sometimes, when you say "I refuse to be afraid of losing my pen!s and/or wiping out billions in shareholder value" and put on your big boy pants, you get a surprise.

On Tuesday, the company participated in a typically uneventful ritual performed annually by corporations -- in a 100-person conference room in a Montreal suburb, stocked with coffee and bottles of Perrier, it held its annual meeting. And for the first time in a while, Valeant’s public interaction with shareholders wasn’t followed by a steep drop in its stock. During the sparsely attended, 40-minute session, the stock tracked the broader market, rising as much as 1.1 percent, then declining by about 1.2 percent. That’s a stark difference from its first-quarter call on June 7, when the shares closed down 15 percent, or the fourth-quarter results release in March, when they fell 51 percent. Chief Executive Officer Joseph Papa, who started last month, said the emphasis at Valeant now is on steadying the company, not executing high-flying M&A deals or pushing the limits of drug pricing, as the company was once known for.